


Cigarettes and Rain

by Anglophile_Rin



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Reichenbach, Scents & Smells, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-09
Updated: 2012-08-09
Packaged: 2017-11-11 18:32:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/481571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anglophile_Rin/pseuds/Anglophile_Rin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He smelled of cigarettes, and rain, and that heavy, almost coconut-like smell of hair that hasn’t been washed in too long.</p><p>Molly Hooper has become pretty much desensitized to smells. Well, most of the time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cigarettes and Rain

Molly Hooper was not generally sensitive to smells.

You couldn’t be – not in her profession. When you were constantly surrounded by the scent of death, decay and stomach contents your olfactory glands became just a little jaded.

Generally, she just didn’t notice this lack of sense. She couldn’t wear perfume to work because some of the other coroners had scent allergies. At home, the only potpourri she could speak of was Toby’s litter (and that was best left unnoticed most days, given the hours she had to pull). Even her meals usually consisted of hospital food, vending machine fare or microwave dinners – no one expected those to emit any mouth watering odours.

In fact, the first time she noticed it was the first time she met Sherlock Holmes.

 

Greg had come by to ask a few questions about a body, followed closely by a very tall and very surly looking man with pale skin, dark circles under his eyes and the twitching fingers of either a musician or a junky – maybe even both. Molly thought Greg was trying some new interviewing technique – tricking an emotional response out of a suspect – so she stepped aside and let the odd man pass her by to approach the poor woman on her table.

As he passed, Molly was taken aback by the sheer _scent_ of him. Not that he smelled bad! Oh, that came out wrong. No, it was more that she actually noticed it. She wasn’t used to that and the feeling was… heady.

He smelled of cigarettes, and rain, and that heavy, almost coconut-like smell of hair that hasn’t been washed in too long.

Okay, maybe that seems like it would have smelled bad. But, oddly enough, it didn’t at all. The combination smelled like danger and teenaged rebellion.

It smelled quite nice, actually.

 

***

 

After a few months, Sherlock started coming in with Greg more often. His fingers stopped twitching, and the bags under his eyes mostly went away. He was still pale, and thin, and mostly surly, but something had obviously changed. He seemed – happier would be the wrong word to use, but more… content? Fulfilled? Interested?

 

He still smelled like rain and cigarettes. But now he also smelled of shoe polish, and the kind of laundry soap you buy at the laundromat.

 

***

 

Soon, Sherlock started coming in by himself. He would offer Molly a tight-lipped smile before rattling off a string of deductions, or questions, or demands. Sometimes he didn’t speak at all, but just spent hours hovering over her shoulder, watching every single move she made around the bodies he was so interested in.

 

On those days, Sherlock smelled of black coffee and damp wool (he had gotten a new coat), and the excessive amounts of hand sanitizer he applied if he had every intention of just reaching over and touching things.

 

Those were the days when Molly started to get a knot in her stomach whenever he came swooping into her morgue. Those were the days Molly started blushing profusely, and talking herself out of asking when it was that he had quite smoking, because she didn’t smell cigarettes anymore.

But that would probably be rude. And maybe a little stalkerish.

 

***

 

On the days Sherlock got to experiment on the bodies – or body parts, depending on the theory he was testing- he smelled of nothing but a light, clean sweat. It was like the _scent_ of Sherlock was like the man himself when exuberant – completely overpowering and able to walk over anything else in its path.

Those were the days Molly liked best. His cheeks would flush and his eyes would shine and she could easily forget that he was beating the poor man who used to work here black and blue with a riding crop.

And then he’d swoop away, ignoring her pathetic attempt at asking him out on a date, and Molly was left in a four-sense world once again.

 

When he came back, Sherlock smelled of tea and cardboard and cologne. Then Molly heard he had gotten a new flatmate, some doctor who had been to war.

Well, that’s nice, she had thought.

 

***

 

The whole Yard had bets on when Sherlock and John were going to start bloody shagging already. Anyone could see that the two were hopelessly in love. Even poor Molly, though the knowledge didn’t stop her stomach from clenching whenever it rained.

She made a go for it with that nice Jim from down in the IT department. He’d fixed her computer, and came over to watch Glee. He even seemed to like Toby.

He didn’t particularly smell like anything.

 

Molly really should have entered the betting pool on Sherlock and John, though. Soon after she broke things off with Jim, and he turned out to be a bit of a madman who tried to kill the detective and his blogger, Sherlock came into the morgue, just as usual.

Except that today he smelled of fresh sheets and tea with milk, and like someone whose hair had been clutched and mouth had been ravaged and back had been pressed against a hard brick wall.

She could have made a bloody fortune.

 

***

 

Molly knew it was silly to still have her crush on Sherlock, when she seemed to be the only one who actually _knew_ that he and John had finally gotten their acts together. She couldn’t help it though. John was nice, and he made Sherlock smell like toast and sleeping in, but a fifth sense was a hard thing to give up, and Molly’s world was still mostly an olfactory wasteland except when it came to Sherlock Holmes and his intoxicating person.

She bought him a book for Christmas – her own private joke to herself. She thought he’d like it because it dealt with murder and oddities. Perfume: Story of a Murderer, it was called.

She didn’t know if he ever read it. Hell, she didn’t know if he’s ever opened it. He had been so mean…

When he leaned forward and planted soft lips on her cheek, he smelled of resin and alcohol and fresh snow.

 

***

 

Molly tried to tell Sherlock that she knew about him and John – and that he didn’t have to pretend. She let him know that he looked sad when John wasn’t watching. She thought it might make him confide in her. If she was always going to love the damnable man, she might as well try and be better friends with him.

Of course, he missed the plot entirely. Frustrated, she left the room. Later, he was gone, leaving a scent trail of dirt and linseed oil and that same excited, clean sweat he smelled like when he was in the middle of boiling down knees.

 

Later, when he needed her, Sherlock only smelled of salt water, and wet wool, and the kind of sweat that animals loved because it meant you were afraid and if you were afraid they could hunt you down and eat you.

 

***

 

Of course she helped Sherlock Holmes. Molly would always help Sherlock Holmes.

 

When he was raced into her morgue, it was like being hit with a brick in the nose. He smelled like copper, and wind and someone else’s tears. Sherlock brought with him the scent of death that Molly had always managed to avoid in her own morgue.

And that was the last scent she had of him. The scent of desperation and betrayal and loyalty were the perfumes that lingered with Molly Hooper for three long, sterile years.

 

***

 

When he finally resurfaced, Sherlock was thin and pale, with dark circles under his eyes. His fingers were twitching like a musician’s or a junky’s – or both. He smelled of cigarettes, and rain, and that heavy, almost coconut-like smell of hair that hasn’t been washed in too long. He smelled like despair, and like a man who had broken his own heart to save the love of his life and needed him now more than ever before.

 

 


End file.
